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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493141">not a kiss nor look be lost</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus'>bluebacchus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - X-Men Fusion, Character Death, Cuddles, Desk Sex, Dom/sub, Edward what are you doing reading Auden to toddlers, First Kiss, Kindergarten Teacher AU, M/M, Musketeers Crossover, Rough Sex, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wall Sex, murder boyfriends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:54:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,721</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493141</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of shorter works, prompt fills, and ficlets.</p><p>1. [Jopson/Little] Kindergarten Teacher AU<br/>2. [Grimaud/Jopson] think of me when you touch yourself<br/>3. [Jopson/Little] Survival Hug<br/>4. [Grimaud/Jopson] dying in my arms<br/>5. [Jopson/Little] X-Men AU<br/>6. [Grimaud/Jopson] labour</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lucien Grimaud/Thomas Jopson, Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Tell Me The Truth About Love (Joplittle, G)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>not-morgendorffer suggested "Because I firmly believe that Matthew McNulty was BORN to handle small children (the smaller, the better), how about some scenario where Ned and Thomas are surrounded by children? Kindergarten teachers, perhaps?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I love you, Mr. Jopson!”</p><p>“Me too! I love you, sir.”</p><p>“Mr. Jopson, I love you!”</p><p>The line of shuffling five-year-olds files past, each greeting Tom with a big smile. The smiles aren’t new, but the declarations of love certainly are. His curiosity piqued, he pushes open the door to Ed’s classroom. Ed has his back to him, erasing the chalk-covered blackboard. He’s halfway through scrubbing at the big heart drawn in the centre when he turns.</p><p>“Ah, Tom,” he says. His cheeks are pink beneath his beard.</p><p>“Hello, Ed.” Ed gestures to the only adult-sized chair in his classroom, but Tom remains standing, choosing instead to lean against Ed’s desk. “Good lesson today?”</p><p>The flush intensifies. “Yes. I was—we were learning about love.”</p><p>“A bit philosophical for a group of children, isn’t it?”</p><p>Ed smiles, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Things are much simpler when you’re five years old.”</p><p>“I suppose,” he says with amusement. “And here I’ve spent the morning lecturing about why rocks are round in cartoons, but not round in real life.”</p><p>Ed laughs at this. “An important life lesson, to be sure.”</p><p>He falls silent, and turns to finish erasing the board. There are words written in the heart, Tom notices, most of them erased and turned into a light coating of chalk dust.</p><p>Tom doesn’t want the conversation to end so soon. He’s always admired Ed Little, but ever since the last round of parent-teacher interviews, he’s been unable to deny that his feelings run stronger than admiration. He was faced with a particularly irate set of parents who began to demand that their “genius” child skip the rest of the year and go straight to first grade. He tried to explain that kindergarten is about socialization and learning how to share and use the toilet on their own moreso than counting to twenty, but they would hear none of it. Then Ed showed up; broader, older, bearded. It would have been a source of irritation that a man with a beard could get the respect he lacked, but Tom was too busy being thankful. He was even more thankful for the cup of coffee (spiked with Bailey’s, of course, because it was <em>parent-teacher interviews</em>) Ed pushed into his hands.</p><p>“Don’t take it personally,” he said, sitting in the vacant chair across from Tom’s desk.</p><p>“It’s hard not to. I know I look younger than I am, but I do try to act professional!”</p><p>“They don’t take you seriously because you’re cute,” Ed said, before his eyes went wide and he dropped his gaze to his lap, looking like he had just sacrificed cheese to a lactose-intolerant volcano god.</p><p>Tom, to his own credit, played it cool. He swallowed his coffee, and then said, “But they take <em>you</em> seriously.”</p><p>Then their eyes met, and it was a moment of clarity for Tom. It would have resolved, he’s certain, if the next parent hadn’t knocked on his classroom door.</p><p>“I’d better go,” Ed said, and he took Tom’s heart with him.</p><p>But it’s more than that. He’s a good teacher, and amazing with children. Tom could listen to Ed read children’s books all day; he does the most charming voices for the characters. It would be a disservice to his students not to combine their classes for story time, and Tom has no shame in sitting on the floor with the kids, just as enraptured by Mr. Little’s performance as they are.</p><p>Although, he may be enraptured for a couple more grown-up reasons.</p><p>It’s easy to watch the way Ed’s lips move over the words when Tom is pretending to look at the picture book he’s holding. There’s something about the way his mouth moves, the slight quirk of his lips to the left when he smiles, and it makes Tom want to feel those lips move against his. He’s never been jealous of a bunch of rogue crayons before, but watching Ed’s lips caress each of the words that pour from his mouth as he reads The Day the Crayons Quit makes Tom feel things. Grown-up things.</p><p>“So, tell me about this lesson about love?”</p><p>Ed turns, the board wiped clean. He leans against his desk next to Tom. “Well, first we read Auden’s Tell Me the Truth About Love.”</p><p>Tom chokes on his own tongue. “You read <em>Auden</em> to a kindergarten class? W. H. ‘I rocked at the shock of his cock’ Auden?”</p><p>Ed blusters. “It’s not like I read them that one!”</p><p>Tom notices too late that he said the word ‘cock’ in a kindergarten classroom. The children are all gone, but he feels ashamed anyways.</p><p>“Besides, I’m not the one who has it memorized,” Ed teases, and Thomas feels colour rise on his cheeks.</p><p>“I was an English major, Mr. Little,” he says, as if that explains anything.</p><p>Ed nudges Tom with his shoulder and smiles down at his shoes. They’re tan boat shoes that look very dashing with his blue chinos. Real suede, probably. They’re very nice. Then again, all of Ed is nice.</p><p>“Anyways, then we made a list of people we love and how we show them that we care.”</p><p>“So that’s why ‘kissy-kissy’ was written on the board.”</p><p>The flush returns to Ed’s ears.</p><p>“Why are you blushing?” Tom asks, teasing. He hopes he’s right. He hopes it’s because of him.</p><p>Ed sticks a foot out in front of him, flexed so his heel rests on the ground. He bounces it a few times, scuffing the heel of his shoe against the floor. “I suppose it’s best you find out now rather than from a group of vicious five-year-olds.” He takes a deep breath. “I may have confessed that my feelings toward you aren’t strictly professional.”</p><p>Tom raises an eyebrow. He can’t stop the smile spreading across his face.</p><p>“In fact, Juliana may have asked me who I loved, and I may have said ‘my mother, my father, and Mr. Jopson.’”</p><p>“So I’m in good company, then,” Tom says. The smile has taken over his entire face now. He can feel his eyes crinkling at the corners, and laughter threatens to bubble out of him. “How would you plan on showing your love for Mr. Jopson? A hug?” He references the words he remembers from the board. “Unloading my dishwasher? Or perhaps… a kissy-kissy?”</p><p>“Don’t embarrass me more, Tom. This is already mortifying.”</p><p>“It shouldn’t be. I had suspected for a while.” Seeing the expression on Ed’s face, he adds, “Or rather, I should say I hoped. I hoped for much longer than I suspected, Ed.”</p><p>“Oh,” he says quietly. “I see.”</p><p>Tom has had enough of waiting. The afternoon class would be coming in at half past, leaving him with less than an hour to do all the things he’s planning to do (licking the curve of Ed’s bottom lip is first on his list, followed by sinking his hands into that beautiful wavy hair).</p><p>“So, Mr. Little,” he says, stepping away from the desk and turning to face Ed. There is a perfect amount of space between Ed’s legs for him to slide into. “Will you tell me the truth about love?”</p><p>Ed’s smile lights up his face. Tom traces a thumb Ed’s lower lip like he’s always wanted to, then wraps his arms around Ed’s neck. Ed nods, and Tom finally presses their lips together.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>When it comes, will it come without warning</em>
  <em><br/>
Just as I’m picking my nose?<br/>
Will it knock on my door in the morning,<br/>
Or tread in the bus on my toes?<br/>
Will it come like a change in the weather?<br/>
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?<br/>
Will it alter my life altogether?<br/>
O tell me the truth about love.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="http://lamlashkilmorychurch.co.uk/2011/02/o-tell-me-the-truth-about-love-w-h-auden/">O Tell me the Truth About Love by W.H. Auden</a><br/><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=489micE6eHU">The Day the Crayons Quit</a><br/>read by Matthew McNulty</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. domesticated animals (GrimJop, E)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Grimaud returns, against better judgement.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>QueerGoblin requested GrimJop + I found you, hand buried inside of your underwear, my name whimpered on your lips</p>
<p>This is set between Musketeers 3x07 and 3x09, or between Grimaud's two near-death experiences in the first chapter of Merchants (which take place in the aforementioned episodes)</p>
<p>THIS CHAPTER IS RATED E.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The hooves of his horse beat a steady path on the road towards Douai. He has arranged to meet a group of Austrian revolutionaries on the border between France and the Low Countries, men seeking to purchase French weapons to assassinate their emperor. With France already at war with Spain, urging another war would be bad for business. But Lucien Grimaud knows how men like these operate, and he knows they will be caught and hanged before they get anywhere near their detested ruler. Tomorrow they will give him the gold and he will give them the guns. What happens after that is no business of his.</p>
<p>There is another reason Grimaud has agreed to meet these men, and he turns his horse down the road that leads towards it. The square shape of the stone inn stands stark against the twilight. The windows are all dark but for one, where the pinprick light of a lamp appears as he draws closer. He cannot be certain, but he believes it is the room he stayed in the first time.</p>
<p>The first time.</p>
<p>An ordinary inn on an ordinary road, and a night that left him silently reeling. It was Thomas Jopson, the innkeeper’s son, who had written to him, informing him that a group of Germans were hatching a plot against their emperor. <em>Should you be interested,</em> he had written, <em>write back. Yours, T.</em></p>
<p>He can see the looping cursive of the word <em>yours</em> in the back of his mind, lodged firmly in place. And it’s not just his letters; a flash of pale blue eyes, the taste of sweat that rolled down his neck as Grimaud fucked him into the mattress, the sound of him begging for more—begging for <em>him</em>—plague him each night before he falls asleep. In the daytime, he can manage. He has much to do, what with Musketeers running this way and that, sabotaging his and Feron’s plans but never coming close to catching him. But at night… Lucien Grimaud is a creature born of war and raised in the shadow of death, and Thomas Jopson is a weakness he cannot afford.</p>
<p>In his desperation, he tried fucking someone else. He offered too much gold for a sad imitation, not realizing that he had selected the only boy with dark hair and light eyes until he had him bent over the bed beneath him. It was all wrong: his skin too pale, his eyes too sad. There was no spark of rebellion, no sharp tongue that would insult him like he wasn’t a professional killer and beg wantonly for his cock in the same breath. He had left the brothel unsatisfied and sorely, deeply tempted to return for Jopson.</p>
<p>He is returning now with a bottle of expensive oil in one pocket and a knife in the other. He does not know which one he will choose. He does not know which will free him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he knocks on the door of the inn, a young boy opens it. He has the same dark hair as Jopson, but little else.</p>
<p>“Good evening, Monsieur,” he says. “May I take your horse? Madame is inside.” Impatient, Grimaud hands over the reins to the boy and tosses a coin at him. He misses it, and it drops to the dirt at his feet. Grimaud grinds the coin into the dirt as he walks past the boy towards the door.</p>
<p>“Provide a weary traveller with some comfort?” he asks as he approaches the woman inside. Sarah, he remembers, though he does not care. From the look on her face, she recognizes him immediately.</p>
<p>“Welcome back, Monsieur,” she says.</p>
<p>Grimaud has never been one for small talk. “Where is your son?”</p>
<p>Sarah’s mouth twitches. “First room on the left. You will pay your regular rate, then?” Grimaud fishes in his belt for his purse and counts out the same number of coins he had paid before. He curses himself for remembering the exact number.  “Enjoy your stay,” she says, and leaves him to climb the stairs on his own.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grimaud silently pushes open the door, and he knows that Thomas Jopson is going to be the death of him. The light from the lantern illuminates his face, contorted in ecstasy as he pants and writhes against the bedspread. Jopson’s right hand is wrapped around his cock, hard and leaking from where he pumps his fist around it. His drawers are barely pushed down his thighs in desperation to get hands on himself. His other hand has rucked his shirt up around his neck, and he moans when he draws a hand down his chest and pinches a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it between them before digging his nails into the delicate skin.</p>
<p>“Mmm—<em>Monsieur Grimaud, please</em>,” he gasps. Grimaud’s cock stirs in his trousers. Jopson hasn’t opened his eyes yet, hasn’t seen Grimaud appear in his room. No, this is what Jopson is like, touching himself to the thought of Grimaud. With his shirt askew, Grimaud can see the last vestiges of a bruise he had left on Jopson’s neck. The knife feels heavy in his pocket.</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ll be back before the bruises fade.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ll think only of you when I touch myself.</em>
</p>
<p>Promises made. Promises kept.</p>
<p>“You’ve been a very good boy, haven’t you, pet?” Grimaud says. His voice is gravelly from his arousal, but he does not think of it as a weakness.</p>
<p>Jopson’s eyes fly open, and he scrambles into a sitting position. Holding the lamp out in front of him, he peers into the darkness.</p>
<p>“Are you really here?” he asks. “Or am I imagining you again?”</p>
<p>Grimaud walks into the lamplight. “I’m here for you, chéri.”</p>
<p>Jopson whimpers. “I hoped you would come. And now, when I need you most.”</p>
<p>Grimaud approaches, helps Jopson shed his clothes before backing away and pulling out the single chair in the room. Jopson pouts as he takes a seat, legs spread. “Tell me what you were thinking about.”</p>
<p>Rearranging himself against a pile of pillows, Jopson reclines and runs a hand slowly down his chest, petting his own chest hair as it draws a line down towards where his unflagging erection stands.</p>
<p>“You,” he says, watching Grimaud curiously. Grimaud places a hand between his splayed legs, palming himself through his leather trousers.</p>
<p>“Go on. Tell me a pretty story and I’ll reward you.”</p>
<p>“Saving your life isn’t enough?” Jopson says coyly. “How did that hole in your stomach heal?”</p>
<p>Grimaud huffs. He was delirious for so much of it he wondered if it was a dream, if not for the fact that he made it to his home village alive. Gaston mentioned something about a “decent peasant woman” who made him a nice stew while “the pretty boy” cut bits of rotten skin off his wound in the next room over, ruining his appetite. Still, if Jopson saved his life, he refuses to be indebted to the man. And with such a delicious flush covering his chest and neck, Grimaud will have no trouble giving him what he wants in return.</p>
<p>Jopson laughs like he’s happy, and shimmies back further against the pillows.</p>
<p>“I was imagining that you took me home and kept me tethered to a bed like this one. I was your special prize, your special pet, and you were my master. In this fantasy, you went out to do business and left me tied to the bedframe, unsatisfied and aching. Aching to be filled. Aching for my master’s cock. I had been so good for you, Monsieur Grimaud. I had behaved and kept myself stretched and slick, ready to receive your cock at any time, but still you denied me. And then you returned home, and you did not even get your boots off before you came to me.”</p>
<p>Grimaud is fully hard now, with all logical thought threatening to leave him.</p>
<p>“Is that what you want, pet?” he asks.</p>
<p>Thomas’s hand closes around his cock and he grins, impish. “Yes, master.”</p>
<p>Grimaud beckons, and unbuckles his belt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jopson straddles him in the chair, legs tucked against Grimaud’s thighs as he wiggles his hips and breathes like every breath with Grimaud’s prick inside him is a breath of fresh air.</p>
<p>“You need this, don’t you?” Grimaud growls in his ear. “You can’t stop thinking about this. All day, all night, your head is filled with thoughts of riding my cock.”</p>
<p>He needs to hear Jopson say it. He needs Jopson to say it so he doesn’t have to admit that he needs it just as much.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Jopson gasps, “I only think of you. Please, master, it isn’t enough. I need more, I can take it, I promise—“ Grimaud wraps his arms under Jopson’s bum and lifts him, stalking over to the wall and pinning his weight against it. The force of impact knocks the wind from Jopson’s lungs and he clenches so tightly—so beautifully—against Grimaud. He slides his arms down beneath his thighs, pulling them up so he will be able to fuck him deeper. With renewed breath, Jopson leans forward and kisses him with a ferocity that Grimaud has missed. He answers with his hips, thrusting up into Jopson’s tight heat as the other man buries his face in his neck to quiet the delighted sounds he makes. Jopson’s toes curl and he shudders as Grimaud fucks him against the wall.</p>
<p>“Yes, right there! I love it, Monsieur. Talk to me, please. Talk to your favourite pet.”</p>
<p>Grimaud peels them away from the wall and for a moment, Jopson is suspended in his arms and on his prick. He turns while he stumbles backwards, and Jopson’s backside violently collides with the small writing desk in the room. The pain only seems to make his cock flush darker, and with Grimaud’s cock still inside him, Jopson wraps his legs around Grimaud’s waist and pulls himself closer, forcefully urging Grimaud’s cock deeper.</p>
<p>“D’you like it when I hurt you, chéri? Does it make you hard?”</p>
<p>He wants him to say yes. He wants to mark up the smooth, unscarred skin beneath him and possess Jopson in a way no one has ever possessed him before. He wants other men to look at him and whisper to themselves <em>that’s Grimaud’s boy </em>and give him a wide berth because they know if they look too long Grimaud will kill them. He doesn’t know what this feeling is or what it means, so he pushes Jopson back against the desk and lifts his legs over his shoulders and fucks him until the boy is bent nearly in half, ankles near his ears. There is so much bare skin in front of him that he wants to touch. The dark hair that covers Jopson’s legs is lighter on his thighs. It looks soft. What would it feel like rubbing against his cheek, he wonders. But there are better options: Jopson’s lips part so prettily when he gasps, and Grimaud presses forward to lick and kiss and suck and bite.</p>
<p>When he moves on to his neck, Jopson writhes. “It’s too much,” he whimpers.</p>
<p>“You can take it,” Grimaud says into his ear. It’s meant to be low, threatening, but it comes out soft. Jopson looks up at him with a sparkle in his eye, pupils blown black with lust, and smiles. In the low light of the bedroom, his teeth glint like fangs.</p>
<p>The noises Jopson is making now are primal, guttural groans and growls that unleash the same feral impulse in Grimaud. He pulls Jopson’s hips to the edge of the desk and wraps his arms around him, lifting him to a sitting position. The height of the desk is perfect for Grimaud to thrust up into him with such force that Jopson’s bum bounces against the wooden surface with each jerk of his hips. As his orgasm builds inside him, Grimaud closes his teeth against the base of Jopson’s neck, and bites. Jopson wails, then keens, holding Grimaud’s head against his neck with a hand in his hair as he comes over his belly. Grimaud gives him no reprieve; he fucks him through his orgasm until he, too, is coming, filling Jopson with his seed; a gift to remember him by.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They sleep together that night in the bed they had shared before.</p>
<p>“Don’t leave before saying goodbye this time,” Jopson says, laying his head on Grimaud’s chest.</p>
<p>“I had business to attend to.”</p>
<p>“You had been shot in the stomach.”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t stay.”</p>
<p>“You should have said goodbye.”</p>
<p>Grimaud runs a hand through Jopson’s hair, brushing it away from his forehead. “Did you doubt I would return?”</p>
<p>Jopson is silent for a long moment. “No,” he says finally. “But I wasn’t certain whether you would kiss me or kill me when you did.”</p>
<p>Grimaud thinks about the knife in his pocket. He was a fool if he thought for a moment that killing Jopson would free him from his obsession. He has seen men fall prey to their vices: gambling, wine, opium; but no other has a vice like Jopson.</p>
<p>Jopson, who has his cheek pressed against the ugliest scar on his chest like it doesn’t bother him; Jopson, who currently is whispering a list of assassination plots he knows of like it’s a lullaby; Jopson, who can, for some reason, quell the rage inside him for a few short hours at a time. Once, he would have considered it a weakness to forget his anger. Now he realizes he can think more clearly, act more calmly, and see what he could not see before.</p>
<p>He isn’t done with France yet; not until Gaston is on the throne and Louis and the Musketeers are dead, but the time to march on Paris is drawing near. He will return soon, and riding high on victory, he will claim his ultimate prize. Until then, he allows Jopson’s warm weight against his side to slow the beating of his heart and he knows he will be stronger for it tomorrow.</p>
<p>He won’t leave without saying goodbye.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>come die over my rarepair with me @bluebacchus on the tumbly or @aumerled on the tweets</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Return [Joplittle, G]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Jopson wakes in the med bay on an unfamiliar ship with a familiar presence at his side.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Crowley suggested "snuggling into my chest, refusing to let my hand go" and Joplittle! This was posted on tumblr a while back but I forgot about it</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tom wakes slowly from a troubled sleep. The berth in the med bay has a broken leg, and it creaks dangerously with the bob of the ship, shaking him gently from his dreams. As he comes to, the pain returns. His leg, the old wound opened from scurvy and weeping with infection, hurts the most. He shakes his foot to keep the blood flowing; it has a nasty habit of going numb where it is propped up on the wooden block. He can’t afford to lose any more toes.</p>
<p>He feels the pain in his bones, next. Deep inside, beneath wasted muscle and pale, frostbitten skin, he imagines his skeleton rattling around, bone ends grinding against each other when he moves. If he moves too fast, he might shatter.</p>
<p>There is a new pain in his hand, the one place where, after the amputation of a few fingertips, gave him almost no trouble whatsoever. His hand is still encased in bandages. They keep his perpetually numb hands warm as much as they keep the wounds closed. His left hand is the one hurting, so he shakes it, wiggles the fingers, bends and flexes them as much as he can, but finds that he cannot. Tom startles fully awake and looks to his hand.</p>
<p>He can hardly fathom what he finds.</p>
<p>His bandaged hand is clutched tightly between a pair of hands clad in fingerless grey gloves, held like a rosary over a head of mussed brown hair. The owner of said hands has his forehead pressed against the edge of Tom’s cot. He appears to be asleep.</p>
<p>Tom still does not know how he got here. The last thing he remembers is dying on the shale, watching his captain—his <em>friend</em>—walk away. The bite of betrayal from Crozier was nothing compared to the ache of heartbreak as his final word—<em>Ned—</em>drifted away, lost to the vast emptiness that would be his deathbed.</p>
<p>It hadn’t been long since the start of their affair, true, but when Ned took him in his arms and congratulated him on his promotion by kissing him, Tom knew that the last three years had all been leading to this moment. After that, there was so much to do: so many new duties, so many men to mourn. And then Tom had gotten sick, but Ned still kissed him so sweetly despite the tang of blood that flavoured his kiss.</p>
<p>He had gone.</p>
<p>But now he’s here.</p>
<p>Tom would believe himself dead if not for the constant pain. His mouth tastes more like lemon juice than blood, but he has always been a realistic man. He is not saved. Not yet.</p>
<p>Ned must feel Tom’s eyes on him, because he rubs his face against the cot and groans, sitting up and stretching the crick out of his neck. He keeps a firm grip on Tom’s hand. It falters when he finally meets Tom’s eyes.</p>
<p>“Hello,” Ned says.</p>
<p>“I watched you leave,” Tom says, but there is no anger in his words. Confusion, yes, and fear, too. But not anger. Not now that Ned is here.</p>
<p>“I came back.”</p>
<p>It’s the only answer Tom wants to hear. He shushes Ned when he tries to explain and carefully shifts himself over so there’s room on the cot for two.</p>
<p>“Hold me?” he asks, and Ned smiles so brightly that Tom smiles back, and then Ned’s face is buried against his chest and he’s crying, loud body-wracking sobs muffled against Tom’s nightshirt, and even though it hurts to move, he wraps him in his arms.</p>
<p>“I’ll never let you go again, I swear it,” Ned says, reaching for his hand. He clings to it, brings the glove of bandages to his face and kisses it again and again. They lay together for a long while in silence.</p>
<p>“Why did you come back?” Tom asks when the silence begins to press in, cold and white.</p>
<p>Ned’s face is still buried against his chest. “I came to the realization that I would rather perish at your side than return home without you.”</p>
<p>Tom buries his smile in Ned’s hair. He listens to the sounds above: the shouting of the ABs, the creak of the wooden deck, the distant shout of <em>land ho!</em>. Ned looks up at him, rubs a wool-clad thumb over his cheekbone. Tom hadn’t realized he was crying until Ned kisses away his tears and whispers <em>we’re home.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Apology [Grimaud/Jopson, M]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It was supposed to be easy. </p>
<p>It was just another cargo drop. Leave the guns in the monastery, the Spaniard had said. Your money will be in the cellar. </p>
<p>There was no money in the cellar, but there were ten American soldiers standing amidst the burnt remains of a French flag, a Union Jack, and Governor Jopson’s banner.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>@mothicalcreatures requested #34 (in a pool of your own blood) of the 'I saw you prompts' on tumblr, then redacted his choice and suggested #45 (while you were dying) to hurt me even worse. I know it's been a while but I hope you are overcome by feelings like I was writing this.</p>
<p>Warnings for character death, a light dose of horniness, and a made up anti-royalist American invasion of Spanish Texas in the 1720s. </p>
<p>Set in the Merchants of Nassau universe to fully utilize character development for ultimate tragedy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was supposed to be easy.</p>
<p>It was just another cargo drop. Leave the guns in the monastery, the Spaniard had said. Your money will be in the cellar.</p>
<p>There was no money in the cellar, but there were ten American soldiers standing amidst the burnt remains of a French flag, a Union Jack, and Governor Jopson’s banner.</p>
<p>Ten soldiers is a lot to fight alone, but Grimaud wasn’t alone. Jopson was behind him with a rifle and felled the first man before Grimaud had a chance to aim.</p>
<p>“I’m coming with you,” Jopson had said back in Nassau. “You know I can help.”</p>
<p>“I can survive the journey alone,” Grimaud had said.</p>
<p>But Jopson was already throwing clothing into a suitcase and taking his rifle down from its rack on the wall. It had only recently returned to the wall: it was Jopson’s bedfellow when Grimaud was away. There is a part of him that suspects this is why Jopson wants to accompany him.</p>
<p>“I’m coming with you,” Jopson had said again, and Grimaud had nodded his assent.</p>
<p>“It won’t be dangerous,” Grimaud had said then. Now, he reloads his pistol and walks through the cellar, stopping to kick the bodies that still twitch and moan on the floor. One reaches for his gun; his fingers make a satisfying crunch under Grimaud’s boot.</p>
<p>“Lucien!” Jopson whispers. He points up the stairs, cocks his head, and holds up four fingers. Grimaud nods, wiping the bloody sole of his boot on the back of one of one of the bodies. He steps gingerly around the growing pools of blood to get back to the stairs before Jopson goes up, but by the time he reaches the top of the stairs, Jopson is already crouched behind a pew, firing at a man in a cowboy hat. He hits him; the man goes down.</p>
<p>“Outside?” Jopson shouts over the noise of the firefight. He ducks, and a shot ricochets off the wood near his head.</p>
<p>Grimaud had counted through the window as he ascended the stairs. “Fifteen horses. Ten downstairs. Four here. One unaccounted for.”</p>
<p>Jopson lines up another shot and fires. “Two down,” he says. “Don’t get sloppy, darling.” Grimaud smirks and tosses his cloak in the air. Shots ring out from the far end of the chapel, and he stands, a musket in each hand. Two more shots and they are alone in the chapel.</p>
<p>“I’ll admit,” Jopson says, “that was quite impressive.”</p>
<p>“There’s still one left.”</p>
<p>“You go. I need a bit of a rest.” Jopson smiles and leans against the back of the pew. Grimaud checks over his body quickly. There are no visible injuries.</p>
<p>“Are you hurt?”</p>
<p>Thomas looks at him with clear eyes. “No,” he says, then frowns. “Why, are you?”</p>
<p>Grimaud pats himself down and checks his hands. No blood. He holds up his clean hands. Thomas leans forward to kiss his palms. “Go finish the job. Then we’ll go home, yeah?”</p>
<p>“Yes. I don’t like Texas.”</p>
<p>Thomas laughs. “No, neither do I. More people have tried to kill me today than all our time in Nassau.”</p>
<p>“That’s a lie, Tommy. The entire Battle of Santa Lucia was fought over you, my own Helen of Troy.”</p>
<p>“Excuse me, this Helen saved the entire island!”</p>
<p>“And I saved you, so the credit is mine.”</p>
<p>“You’re incorrigible, Lucien.”</p>
<p>“I’ll apologize later.”</p>
<p>Thomas grabs a fistful of Lucien’s hair and pulls him close. “Your ‘apologies’ somehow always end up with me on my back and your cock in my arse.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t that the best kind?”</p>
<p>Footsteps echo down the hall. They both fall silent. Lucien draws his musket, Thomas points his rifle at the arched entrance to the chapel. An old missionary shuffles out, hands up.</p>
<p>“Ellos han dejado,” he says. “No hay ningún los caballos afuera.”</p>
<p>“It’s over,” Lucien translates. “The horses have gone.”</p>
<p>Thomas nods. “Did you want to take a look at the stables? I believe you owe me an apology.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s got Thomas balanced against the edge of the cart loaded with gunpowder, both of his legs wrapped around his waist and his arms around Lucien’s neck, grasping and pulling at his hair as he grinds their pricks together.</p>
<p>“Look at you,” Lucien whispers. “You need me, don’t you, chéri?”</p>
<p>Thomas bites at his good ear before answering, “I’ve been thinking about this all day. I want to be by your side, always.”</p>
<p>It’s not the usual filth that pours from Tommy’s mouth when Lucien has him like this.</p>
<p>“You will be. You belong with me.”</p>
<p>Thomas gasps and lowers a hand between them, gripping both of their lengths in one soft hand and stroking in time to Lucien’s thrusts.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he pants. “By your side. In your bed. In your arms. Covering your blind spots. Anywhere you need me is where I need to be.”</p>
<p>It’s too much--the blood, the bullets, the smell of Thomas’s hair that tickles his nose—Lucien comes with a grunt, then drops his hand down to make sure Thomas does the same. His hand is of similar size but rougher, with thick callouses from his sword and dagger, and Thomas’s breath catches in his throat as he tumbles over his peak, covering Lucien’s hand with his spend.</p>
<p>Thomas laughs and fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket. He wipes his hand and passes it to Lucien.</p>
<p>“Clean yourself up, you dirty rogue,” he laughs, but the cart shifts and he loses his balance, dropping the cloth. Lucien stills him with a hand on his knee and bends to fish it out of the hay.</p>
<p>It all happens so fast. One second Tommy is perched on the edge of the cart above him while he bends down; the next, the barn doors are open and a cacophony of shots ring out. The next: Tommy lets out a soft <em>oh </em>and slides off the cart. Lucien catches him before he hits the ground. There is blood on his face.</p>
<p>“Tommy?”</p>
<p>Thomas smiles weakly up at him. His eyes are hazy and unfocused. “You go kill those bastards, darling. I’ll be fine here for a minute.”</p>
<p>Lucien looks down Thomas’s body. He can see at least three places on his torso and abdomen where the bullets hit.</p>
<p>“No, we need to get you out. Find a doctor.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Thomas says, raising a hand to brush Lucien’s greasy hair away from his face. “Go clear us a path home.”</p>
<p>Lucien slides Thomas off his lap and arranges the hay behind him. “Lie on your side, like this. Yes, good. I won’t be long, Tommy.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Thomas says, and it sounds like he is crying. Lucien shoves the protective feelings down and lets himself be overtaken by his rage. It starts in his gut: a fire burning steadily larger and hotter, spreading up through his chest. His blood thunders in his ears and it burns.</p>
<p>He makes quick work of the two outside. They’re taken by surprise and barely have time to draw their weapons. The next two men are shot with their comrades guns, right between the eyes. The next tries to sneak up behind him, and Lucien cracks his skull with the butt of his musket and grinds his face into the dirt until he stops moving. He loses track of how many he’s killed—he moves like a man possessed, ducking and kicking and shooting and reloading, spitting in one man’s face and breaking his neck, then his spine beneath his boot.</p>
<p>Finally, it is down to him and the last man, on the ground with the point of his sword against his breast.</p>
<p>“There are more of us coming,” the man says.</p>
<p>Lucien licks his lips. He tastes blood. “Good,” he says, and pushes down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s back in the stable before the last man’s gurgling breaths stop.</p>
<p>“Tommy,” he calls out. Thomas is in the same position he was earlier, curled up on his side. The hay around him is red. The entire stable smells of copper.</p>
<p>“Lucien,” Thomas says weakly. Lucien drops to his knees and cradles Thomas’s head in his lap. “You came back.”</p>
<p>“I’ll always come back for you, Tommy.”</p>
<p>Thomas’s eyes close. When he opens them, they’re full of tears.</p>
<p>“It hurts, yes, but you are strong. You’ve suffered so much. This is nothing.”</p>
<p>The tears leak out of Thomas’s eyes and down his cheeks. “I don’t think I’m going to make it out of this. And I—“</p>
<p>“You will. <em>You will,</em> Tommy. I need you by my side, remember?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Thomas says, voice cracking. “I love you, you know. I think I always have.”</p>
<p>“You’re not going to die, chéri. I won’t let you.”</p>
<p>Thomas’s shoulders slump against him. “I’ve always liked it when you called me that. You never called anyone else <em>chéri.</em>”</p>
<p>Lucien’s hands are shaking. His thoughts are addled, frantic. “No, it was just for you. Everything was. For you.”</p>
<p>The world has narrowed to this stable, to Lucien holding Thomas in his arms as he bleeds out, helpless to do anything but watch. Lucien had never believed in peace until he fell into bed with Thomas Jopson. Thomas gave him that sense of calm. It’s now, faced with the inevitable and irreversible death of the only man he’s ever cared about, that Lucien realizes that he cannot go back to being alone. Thomas is everything he is not; even facing death Thomas is calm and quiet, never once complaining about the pain.</p>
<p>“I can’t lose you,” Lucien chokes out. “I can’t go back without you.”</p>
<p>Lucien shifts him so more of Thomas is leaning against him. He needs to feel his weight, to remember the feel of every inch of him pressed against his chest. Thomas’s hand comes up again, grasping at the air. Lucien takes it, presses it to his cheek. He leans into Thomas’s touch.</p>
<p>“Oh, my Lucien,” Thomas says quietly. “My Monsieur Grimaud. My love. I’m glad you’re here.” Thomas’s arm goes slack, but Lucien holds his hand against his cheek. Outside, in the distance, he can hear the arrival of the next wave of American soldiers. Thomas’s breathing slows, his chest rising less and less with each one. His face is stark white against the black of his hair, the pink that still colours his kiss-bruised lips, and the blood that soaks through his white shirt.</p>
<p>Lucien holds him close, burying his face in Thomas’s neck. He can still smell the salt in his hair from the sea spray rising over the bow of the ship from New Providence Island. <em>It won’t be dangerous,</em> he had told him. It was supposed to be easy. Lucien bangs his head back against the cart in his grief. A spray of powder hits him on the forehead and falls into his eyes. He wipes them against his sleeve. Behind him, a barrel of gunpowder leaks over the base of the wooden cart. He reaches for Thomas’s rifle. He has one shot left.</p>
<p>Lucien Grimaud never had time for religion. He hopes, as he spreads the gunpowder around the edges of the stable, that there is some semblance of an afterlife. Heaven and Hell mean little to him. They could be nothing worse than what he’s already experienced. But even Hell, with all its depictions of dancing devils and eternal torture, can’t compare to a life without Thomas. Lucien picks up Thomas’s body, now completely still, and lays it in the cart, flanked by barrels. He climbs up next to him and lies down beside him with the rifle in hand. The stable doors open, but the soldiers can’t see him past the barrels. He buries his face in Tommy’s hair for the last time, kisses his neck, and wraps his arms around his waist. There is a barrel of gunpowder against the far wall of the stable that’s an easy shot. The explosion will light the trail of powder that surrounds the entire stable, leading back to the powder keg that surrounds them. Lucien waits for the last soldier to enter the stable, then aims the rifle.</p>
<p>“I’ll see you soon, Tommy,” he says. He pulls the trigger.</p>
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<p>Lucien blinks back into existence on the ground of an empty stable in Texas, Mexico.</p>
<p>“That was fast.”</p>
<p>Thomas is standing beside him, offering a hand. Lucien takes it. He lets Thomas pull him to his feet.</p>
<p>“I didn’t want to keep you waiting,” Lucien says.</p>
<p>Thomas smiles down at his shoes. “I wouldn’t have minded.”</p>
<p>“I told you I would be by your side.”</p>
<p>“Even now?”</p>
<p>“Even now.”</p>
<p>Thomas holds out his hand again. It’s clean, tanned, with tidy fingernails. On his left ring finger is one of Lucien’s rings. “Do you think we can take over the afterlife? Become gods?”</p>
<p>Lucien takes Thomas’s hand. “We have time. I promised I would take you home.”</p>
<p>Thomas blinks away the rush of tears to his eyes. “Back to Nassau?”</p>
<p>Lucien nods. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now that we’re dead, but I’ve been plagued by sentiment for our wooden house outside the city.”</p>
<p>“I love you,” Thomas says suddenly. “And you blew yourself up rather than continue on without me, so I’d damn well say that you love me back.”</p>
<p>“Is that what this is?” Lucien asks. He lifts an eyebrow. “So what do we do now?”</p>
<p>Thomas looks to the left. A shimmering rift in the air glistens before them. “We don’t do anything. It doesn’t change a thing. I still expect you to pin me to the bedspread and fuck me like a wild animal and you can still clutch at your breast whenever I do something particularly wonderful and wonder why your chest hurts. Now you just know what it is.”</p>
<p>Lucien nods at the slice in the air. “Will that take us home?”</p>
<p>“I think so.” Together, they approach the rift. Thomas sticks a hand through it. “It feels like Nassau.”</p>
<p>“Don’t let go of my hand.”</p>
<p>“Never,” Thomas says over his shoulder, and he disappears through the rift. A gentle tug on his hand pulls Lucien forward, and he follows.</p>
<p>The light is almost blinding, and Lucien raises a hand to shield his eyes. He doesn’t let go of Thomas’s hand. As his eyes adjust, he can see that Thomas was right. It’s their house. It’s a little bit brighter, a little bit cleaner, and the horses outside aren’t quite right, but its close enough. And Thomas is here, smiling and in front of him, and then his arms are wrapped around his neck and he’s kissing him and it feels just as good as it did when they were both alive. Maybe better.</p>
<p>Thomas breaks the kiss and looks at him coyly from under his lashes. “You know, you really should <em>apologize</em> for getting me killed…”</p>
<p>Lucien ducks his head and kisses him again, and together they fumble their way towards eternity.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I COULDN'T JUST LEAVE IT, OKAY?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Much To Do [Joplittle, T]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>When Edward Little was thirteen years old, his face exploded.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Crowley also suggested Joplittle and "in the bathroom at a formal event, crying in the bathroom over how you saw yourself as ugly". I've been thinking about this AU since @ktula brought to my attention that Little looks like a Victorian Wolverine with the muttonchops and I, being a die hard X-Men fan, had to invent an incredibly elaborate AU.</p>
<p>Little is not Wolverine in this AU because he's too depressed. If you can catch all the parallels between Icy Boys and X-Men I will be very impressed, considering one of them is Eye Boy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Edward’s never been to a Mutant Rights rally before.</p>
<p>Though really, even if he had, he doubts it would be anything like this. Fitzjames has never done anything by halves. From coming out as a mutant on his talk show ten years ago to working with human philanthropist John Franklin (his wife, Prime Minister Jane Franklin was just as involved, of course) to establish a so-called “mutant paradise” in the Pacific, Fitzjames was the public ideal of a “good mutant.”</p>
<p>Outside the Royal Philharmonic, Tozer (the bouncer; Edward has tattooed him four or five times now) took one look at Edward’s face before ushering him past the line and inside. For the umpteenth time, he wonders if he should have wrapped himself in his scarf before leaving the house. Inside, he comes face to face with all his childhood heroes. The Erebites are all here: Graham Gore, who’s energy manipulation keeps him from aging a day over thirty; Fred Des Voeux is in the corner near the bar, chilling glasses of champagne with a touch of a finger; Dundy Le Vesconte in the balcony, no doubt responsible for the fireworks bursting overhead; and even his personal favourite, Henry Collins, who he sketched over and over again during his long, dull days in the hospital facility after giving a statement about his battles with depression. “Even mutants can have depression,” he had said on TV, before parting the clouds and letting the sun shine on his face. Edward even thinks he catches a glimpse of Jimmy Fairholme before the man turns invisible again. He’s never understood it. If he looked like Fairholme, he would never want to be invisible.</p>
<p>Edward stares down at his worn combat boots. He came straight from work and didn’t bother changing. Everyone else is dressed for a night at the opera and he feels conspicuously underdressed, even ignoring the chains strung through his face. Coming here was a mistake. Signing on to go to Fitzjames’s island was a mistake. He doesn’t belong with the beautiful mutants. He should go live in secret with the guy who speaks to rats and the woman with the portal to hell in her stomach.</p>
<p>He feels the weight of a hundred eyes on him (it might be the guy who is literally covered with them—Gibson, maybe?) and he ducks his head. The chains pull against his cheeks and he fights the temptation to tear the rings right out of his skin and let them see what happens if he were to be, as Fitzjames’s motto says, <em>mutant and proud.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Edward Little was thirteen years old, his face exploded.</p>
<p>It started with a sore jaw that came on after dinner one night. The next morning when he was brushing his teeth, he looked in the mirror and saw an ordinary teenage boy—awkward haircut, a smattering of spots, his three impressive beard hairs growing in nicely—and then he was holding half a toothbrush and his face was on fire.</p>
<p>It’s not fire that burns inside him, Dr. Goodsir said. It’s energy. Psionic energy, whatever that means. For Edward, it meant that no matter how many times Dr. MacDonald healed his face, it would split open again and from the nose down, he was a monster. He spent eleven years in that facility, the subject of a decade of failed experiments to fix his face and let him lead a normal life.</p>
<p>Dr. Goodsir finally found a solution. He could have a life, a <em>normal</em> life, but he could never have a normal appearance. James Clark Ross’s discovery of a new element in the Antarctic—Rossium—marked a new chapter in his life. With MacDonald’s healing abilities, Goodsir was able to pierce his skin with Rossium rings, hooked together by Rossium chains that absorbed the energy that bled from his pores. His face is the worst of it—the energy wants to explode out of his mouth for some reason-- and so Edward Little emerged from the facility with 48 metal piercings holding him together and the lie that he was a normal (human) guy who was just really into piercings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Hello, Edward</em>, a voice inside his head says.</p>
<p>Edward looks around. He might be going crazy. The metal might hold his body together but nothing can help his brain when he gets freaked out like this and now that he’s out in the open hearing voices, he’s awful freaked out. His heart is thumping in his chest and the world starts to spin. Edward ducks down an empty hall to find a lavatory where he can wait out the panic attack.</p>
<p>He huddles in on himself underneath the row of sinks and thinks about horses standing in a serene field until the panic subsides. He used to take riding lessons, back when he was twelve years old and still thought he was human.</p>
<p>Finally, he can feel his head clear and his breathing return to normal.</p>
<p>“What do I do now?” he asks himself out loud. God, he could really use a glass of water right now.</p>
<p>“First, you should drink this,” a familiar voice answers. A hand enters his narrowed field of vision, offering him a glass of water. “Then, we should talk.”</p>
<p>He drinks the water as the man seats himself cross-legged on the lavatory floor. Of course. It’s the man in the grey suit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He first came to Edward at work. Edward has just finished explaining to a young man that no, they don’t do piercings like his <em>anywhere</em> while avoiding the truth that the rings through his face are the only thing keeping his face from exploding. Again.</p>
<p>“Fitzjames’s plan isn’t going to work,” the man in the grey suit had said. His eyes were so blue, and when he handed Edward his favourite coffee from his favourite café, he knew that he was a mutant like him.</p>
<p>But he wasn’t—he isn’t—because the man in the grey suit is <em>gorgeous</em> and Edward has confined himself to strictly “alternative” circles because of the rings through his cheeks and nose and lips and ears and the Rossium studs that hold his skin together like rivets in a… shed. Or a robot. Hell, he doesn’t even <em>bleed</em> anymore. He cuts himself and light pours out and then the breaker for his entire apartment building blows and only his flat is illuminated by the light that pours out of a papercut or a nick from his razor.</p>
<p>The man in the grey suit keeps finding him, appearing in the aisle over at the grocery store when Edward has his scarf pulled up around his mouth or sitting on the bench outside his flat when the power surges.</p>
<p>The man in the grey suit is staring at him. “You don’t belong here,” he says.</p>
<p>“No. I don’t belong anywhere.”</p>
<p>“You don’t believe that.” The man in the grey suit smiles sadly. “You should be more honest with yourself, Edward Little.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know where I belong,” he says. “I’m not like them.”</p>
<p>“No,” the man in the grey suit says. “You’re like me.”</p>
<p>Edward snorts, but the man continues.</p>
<p>“Your power is real. It isn’t for show, not like Henry’s fireworks or Fitzjames’s shapeshifting.”</p>
<p>“It’s ruined my life.”</p>
<p>“That’s a very <em>human</em> way of looking at it.”</p>
<p>Edward leans his head against the u-bend. The metal clinks against the chain that connects his ear to his cheek.</p>
<p>“How do you keep finding me?”</p>
<p>The man in the grey suit stands and looks at his reflection in the mirror. He pushes a stray lock of hair off his forehead.</p>
<p>“Because I’m looking for you.”</p>
<p>“Why?” The man extends a hand. Edward ignores it, but stretches his legs out in front of him.</p>
<p>“Because Fitzjames’s plan isn’t going to work.”</p>
<p>“How do you know?”</p>
<p>The man looks at him with ice blue eyes. “Crozier.”</p>
<p>Edward laughs. “Crozier? And you believe him?”</p>
<p>The man in the grey suit taps his temple. “I’ve seen it. I can show you, if you like.”</p>
<p>Crozier had appeared on Fitzjames’s talk show once alongside Sir John Franklin for a holiday special about mutant rights. Crozier is a known alarmist—a radical mutant who calls for immediate integration and acceptance of all mutants into human society. Fitzjames and Franklin’s purchase of an island was, apparently, “an invitation to genocide.”</p>
<p>But Edward can see the potential for disaster in anything, so he accepts the hand that pulls him to his feet.</p>
<p>“Wait,” he says as the man raises his hands on either side of Edward’s head. “Who are you?”</p>
<p>“Jopson,” the man says. “Thomas Jopson. I’m a telepath, I’m Crozier’s assistant, and I’m here to recruit you.”</p>
<p>“Recruit me for what?” Edward asks, but Jopson’s hands are brushing against his temples and he sees <em>everything.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>The island burns. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Mutants die horrible, painful deaths.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Fitzjames watches a wall of darkness approach with a rocket launcher in his hand and tears in his eyes. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Human militias roam the streets, hunting mutants.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Edward is cornered in the alley behind the tattoo shop, and he begs them not to make him do this, but they keep coming and he pulls the chains out of his face and explodes into light.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>They’re back in the lavatory at the Philharmonic, and Jopson has him pinned against a wall, eyes like ice, then leans in and kisses him.</em>
</p>
<p>“Oops,” Jopson says, “that last one was mine.” He smiles, and Edward doesn’t have to be a telepath to know that it wasn’t an accident.</p>
<p>“Is that—“ Edward’s voice is hoarse. “Is that how you see me?”</p>
<p>Jopson nods. “Handsome, sweet, powerful… and destined to be mine.”</p>
<p>“Did Crozier show you?”</p>
<p>Jopson smiles in his usual enigmatic way. “His visions of the future can be changed. That’s why we need you. We’re going to rewrite the future and save mutantkind.”</p>
<p>Edward is still reeling, though he isn’t sure if it’s from the images of destruction or the interest of the incredibly handsome man standing in front of him. He says the first thing that comes to mind.</p>
<p>“And I’ll be your boyfriend?”</p>
<p>Jopson’s smile grows wider, and he backs Edward against the wall.</p>
<p>“Yes, Edward Little. You’ll be my boyfriend.”</p>
<p>Jopson’s eyes shine like ice, and he leans in to kiss him. It’s soft and hard all at once, like his boot breaking the surface of a fresh snowfall. Jopson pulls away, gently stroking the chains on his face.</p>
<p>“Come with me, Edward Little. We have much to do on <em>Terror.</em>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Introducing... Francis Crozier's C-Men!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Acts of Service [GrimJop, M]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"I like watching you work," Thomas whispers.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>@whalersandsailors requested "watching me while i sweat from exercising" from the 'i found you' prompts. I took a few liberties with what exactly 'exercise' means...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p>
<p>The soil beneath the baked surface of the ground is dense and damp. The storm passed days ago; the sun beats down on Thomas’s head where he sits, unnoticed, on the back step of his house. Lucien is absorbed in his work, shovel digging into the ground over and over. The mound of dirt beside the grave grows, but Lucien is still only knee-deep in the hole. The white linen shirt clings to the sweat on his chest and back. Thomas can feel beads of perspiration form at his temples and he wipes them away before the droplets can roll down his cheeks.</p>
<p>The movement alerts Lucien. He looks up from the shallow grave.</p>
<p>“Are you still ill?” he asks.</p>
<p>Thomas shrugs. “I’ve been in bed too long to tell. I thought the fresh air might do me good.”</p>
<p>Lucien stabs the shovel into the earth and steps out of the hole to come and crouch in front of Thomas. He wipes his hands on his trousers and raises a hand to Thomas’s forehead. This close, Thomas can smell the sweat that clings to him, mixed with the smell of damp earth.</p>
<p>“Don’t be stubborn, Tommy,” Lucien says, but he leaves it at that and returns to digging. Thomas stretches his legs out in front of him, satisfied to watch Lucien sweat a little bit longer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>II.</p>
<p>It’s not the blood that Thomas craves. It’s not the screams, or the tears, or the begging and pleading and eventual betrayal. It’s not the sense of victory that comes when their victim breaks, spilling all the secrets they were tasked with guarding. It’s watching Lucien work.</p>
<p>It keeps him coming back again and again to the last stall in their stable where Lucien has his latest victim.</p>
<p>“I’m not a good man,” Lucien had said once before, and he said it once again.</p>
<p>Thomas had answered, “Neither am I,” and that had settled it.</p>
<p>He likes to sit on the bales of hay opposite, a safe distance away. Sometimes, after a particularly hard-fought victory, Lucien will pick him up off the hay bales like he’s a damsel waiting for a dance partner to take her by the hand and whisk her away. Their waltz is not a beautiful one, but they move in perfect synchronicity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s humid today. Lucien’s hair is impossibly fluffy and soft. Thomas knows; he spent the first hour after waking with his hands buried in it, stroking and petting as Lucien pretended to be asleep to avoid the embarrassment of enjoying having his scalp massaged like a puppy dog.</p>
<p>It makes him no less terrifying with a knife in his hand as he cuts off the fingers, one by one, of a pirate in the stable. Thomas watches the sweat gather on the back of Lucien’s neck and soak into the collar of his shirt. He keeps it on despite the blood that has soaked into its hem. Lucien bares very little skin for anyone who isn’t Thomas. It’s only Thomas who knows every freckle, every mole, every scar that stands out against his skin, pale where it compares to the even, golden tone of Thomas’s tan. His skin in beautiful in its delicacy, a stark contrast to the man who wears it.</p>
<p>What skin Thomas can see—his calloused hands, slivers of neck through the unkempt waves of hair, his perfectly straight nose in profile—shines in the moist heat. Lucien shakes his head and rubs his eyes with a loose linen sleeve.</p>
<p>“Come here, darling,” Thomas says, pulling his handkerchief out of a pocket. Lucien leaves his knife in the thigh of the pirate, who writhes against his restraints. Lucien tries to blink the sweat from his eyes, but the salt stings and his eyes leak tears. Thomas brushes the hair from his forehead before daubing away the moisture that wells in the corners of his eyes. For good measure, Thomas wipes the skin around them, then mops his forehead clean of the sweat that gathers at his hairline.</p>
<p>Before he lets Lucien go, he links his fingers behind Lucien’s neck to feel the cool sweat against his overheated skin.</p>
<p>“I like watching you work,” Thomas whispers before kissing his forehead. Lucien scoffs.</p>
<p>“Why is that?”</p>
<p>“Because when you sweat, you sweat for me. For us.”</p>
<p>“For you,” Lucien says. He exhales heavily through his nose—a laugh or another scoff, Thomas is never sure which he has earned—and returns to his pirate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>III.</p>
<p>A tropical storm rages outside. Rain hammers against the closed windows, and under the covers, Lucien and Thomas make love.</p>
<p>There is no other word for it; the weight of the wool blankets presses them together, chest to chest, and all Thomas can do is let his body be blanketed by the broad, scarred lines of his beloved Monsieur Grimaud. His fingernails scrabble at the scarred back that protects him from the outside world—from the cold air of their house, from the sounds of the violent storm, from anyone who seeks to hurt him—and dig in somewhere near Lucien’s shoulder blades. He hisses in surprise as the scratches break the skin, pushing closer and pushing deeper as a reward or as a punishment—there is no difference when they’re wrapped together like this—and Thomas gasps. He buries his next cry in Lucien’s neck, lips brushing over the tendons as they shift and strain as Lucien works his hips in sharp, fast thrusts. Thomas can feel the slide of Lucien’s cock inside him, the friction against his rim as he relentlessly drives into him. Despite the chill, Thomas can taste the sweat forming on Lucien’s neck and he extends his tongue just far enough to taste. Lucien is silent outside of the harsh breaths against Thomas’s ear, so he licks again, chasing the taste of salt, and then again, to feel out the ridge of a scar under the tip of his tongue.</p>
<p>He reaches his peak with Lucien inside him and the taste of him overwhelming his senses, and when Lucien pulls out and spends across Thomas’s belly, he has to peel himself off Thomas’s skin, leaving a sheen of shared perspiration over both their chests.</p>
<p>The draught that filters in through the closed shutters has them pulling the blankets back over themselves after skin is wiped clean. Thomas pillows his head against Lucien’s shoulder. The arm wrapped around his shoulders pulls him closer. Thomas falls asleep with a smile, and the rain continues to fall.</p>
<p> </p>
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